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Why did Klal Yisrael create the eigel immediately after Kabbalas HaTorah? The Midrash Tanchuma reveals that Torah (תורה) sheb'al peh—requiring total devotion to figuring out what Hashem (ה׳) wants—felt impossible without Moshe as intermediary. The eigel was an attempt to replace Moshe with a divine voice that would simply tell them what to do, avoiding the overwhelming avodah of Torah sheb'al peh.
This profound shiur addresses one of the most perplexing questions in Jewish history: how could the dor that said "na'aseh v'nishma" at Har Sinai fall into the terrible sin of the eigel ha'zahav just forty days later? Rabbi Zweig develops a revolutionary understanding based on a Midrash Tanchuma that distinguishes between Torah (תורה) shebiksav and Torah sheb'al peh in terms of the relationship demanded of Klal Yisrael. The shiur begins by noting several difficulties in the parsha's chronology. According to the simple reading of the pesukim, Moshe received the luchos on the sixteenth of Tammuz, yet he didn't descend until the seventeenth. The Chizkuni explicitly states the luchos were given on the sixteenth. Why would Hashem (ה׳) give Moshe the luchos a day before he needed to come down? Additionally, the shiur notes that Rashi (רש"י) explains the entire chet ha'eigel resulted from a mistake in counting—the people thought Moshe's ascent day counted as day one, when actually the count began the following night. This seems like a trivial error to trigger such catastrophe.
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Parshas Ki Sisa, Shemos 32
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